Dearest Gentle Reader, It has come to this author’s attention that some love stories begin long before either party is aware they are part of one. Once upon a time, there were two children who knew of each other in passing. She, younger and wide-eyed with unspoken admiration, and he, older and completely unaware of the impression he left behind. To anyone else, it was nothing more than familiarity. To her, it was a quiet childhood crush she never dared to speak aloud. He was simply the older boy moving through life, oblivious to the fact that he had already taken up residence in someone’s daydreams. And she was simply the younger girl who thought of him far more often than she should have. Time, as it tends to do, carried them in different directions, and childhood slipped quietly into memory. Or so it seemed. For fate has a rather mischievous way of rewriting old stories when least expected. Years later, they found their way back to one another—not as children this time, but as adults meeting with a strange sense of familiarity neither could quite explain. What was once a younger girl’s quiet admiration has now become something far more real. The older boy she once looked up to has become the man she is now engaged to. One might call it coincidence. This author prefers to call it destiny finally catching up. Yours truly, Lady Whistledown